09. 2015Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.32 No. 09

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

1711 The Bright Side Of

Leadership 20 tips to keep away from the dark side of leadership

2621

Politics or Performance? Step out of your comfort zone and lead

Committed CapitalistIs he really an enlightened leader in disguise?

Great Company Cultures Not just for big companies like Google

BECOMING A SERVANT LEADERSatisfaction & great results come with servant leadership

Ken Blanchard - LEAD2015 speaker A Tribute To

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

- Page 5

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08.2013Essentials of leadership

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05 A Tribute To Dr. Wayne W. Dyer The self-help guru who helped transform lives 07 A Road Less Travelled Transforming a small-box retailer into a top training organization Michelle Maldonado interviews Donna C. Turk

09 Becoming A Servant Leader Satisfaction & great results come with servant Ken Blanchard - LEAD2015 speaker

10 A Lesson From Olympic Gold The secret to making the team Bruce H. Jackson & Matt Deakin

11 The Bright Side Of Leadership 20 tips to keep away from the dark side of leadership Bejoy Mathew

15 Speaking To The Board Of Directors Tips for handling Q&A sessions, interruptions, questions, and objections Craig Bentley and Suzanne Bates

17 Politics or Performance? Step out of your comfort zone and lead Judith E. Glaser

19 What Do Leaders Need To Know About Writing? How to write to influence and drive action Deborah Dumaine

21 Committed Capitalist Is he really an enlightened leader in disguise? Lawrence Polsky

23 What Does Your Culture Look Like? Shaping your organization for success Priscilla Archangel

24 Managing Cultural Diversity Understanding diversity in the workplace environment Richard Secord

26 Great Company Cultures Not just for big companies like Google Russ Elliot

29 Importance Of Leaders With The Right Leadership Styles RBL framework to achieve organizational results Prof. Sattar Bawany

32 Choosing Excellence: Being A Level Three Leader The path to authentic leadership begins with a choice - (Part One of Three) Tom DeCotiis

Becoming A Servant Leader

Servant leadership is something that people need, says Ken Blanchard, one of the most powerful leadership experts today. PG.09

Satisfaction & great results come with servant

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

Essentials of leadership development,

managerial effectiveness, and organizational

productivity

1711 The Bright Side Of

Leadership 20 tips to keep away from the dark side of leadership

2621

Politics or Performance? Step out of your comfort zone and lead

Committed CapitalistIs he really an enlightened leader in disguise?

Great Company Cultures Not just for big companies like Google

09. 2015Vol.32 No. 09

This issue of Leadership Excellence starts with a heartfelt tribute to Dr. Wayne Walter Dyer who passed away on August 29, 2015. Dr. Dyer, an internationally renowned author and speaker in the fields of self-development and spiritual growth, always inspired people to live simply and live their best life through his power packed messages. One of the greatest influencers of this era, Dr. Dyer will be dearly missed.

The cover story of this issue of Leadership Excellence talks about the servant leadership concept. LEAD 2015 speaker and acclaimed leadership expert Ken Blanchard feels that servant leadership builds self-esteem and encourages personal growth. He discusses in detail about the leadership part and servant part of servant leadership. See the video of his speech to get more insights about the topic.

Bejoy Mathew’s The Bright Side Of Leader-ship talks about the leadership journey. Accord-ing to him, leaders on a daily basis face several situations that can put themselves on the dark side of leadership. A good understanding of the dark side of leadership will help leaders to shift themselves to the brighter part. He puts forth 20 tips to keep away from the dark side of leadership.

What does the word ‘capitalist’ bring to your mind? Well, if ‘greed’ is your answer, author Lawrence Polsky disagrees. According to him, bottom line capitalists are in fact often not only enlightened leaders, but extremely generous, to the point of being humanists. Do you agree? Find out why he feels so by reading his interesting article Committed Capitalist

Seemingly small and unchecked negative behaviors blossom until they derail careers or ruin relationships. The culture of a company or personality of an individual must be care-fully cultivated based on desired outcomes that support the purpose of the organization.

Culture is observable in the beliefs, behaviors, knowledge, experiences and values of an orga-nization and the individuals in it. So how can leaders redirect focus on building a culture that aligns with the desired results of the company? Read Priscilla Archangel’s article What Does Your Culture Look Like? to know more.

In brief, this issue of the magazine takes you through various verticals of leadership that can help you in your journey forward. Happy Reading!

We believe that there is no better way to connect with people than by sharing your lead-ership story, so if you have one, send it to us and do not forget to mail us your feedback.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky 

Remember!! Sept. 30  is the deadline to submit a Leadership 500 Excellence Award nomination. Don’t miss it!! www.lead2016.com 

Vol.32 No. 09Editor’s Note

Have a say ?Write to the Editor.

Editorial Purpose:Our mission is to promote personal and organizational leadership based on con-structive values, sound ethics, and timeless principles.

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Leadership Excellence pays tribute to Dr.Wayne Walter Dyer, an internationally renowned author and speaker in the fields of self-development and spiritual growth. Lovingly called the “father of motivation,” Wayne passed away on August 29, 2015. He was 75.

If you change the way you

look at things, the things you

look at change.

- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

WAYNE W. DYER was a distinguished self-help guru, speaker and author of 40 books, including 20 New York Times bestsellers. His audio and video programs were equally renowned. Wayne ap-peared on thousands of television and radio shows.

His books Manifest Your Destiny, Wisdom of the Ages, There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, and the New York Times bestsellers 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, The Power of Intention, Inspira-tion, Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life, Excuses Begone!, Wishes Fulfilled, and I Can See Clearly Now have all been featured as National Public Television specials.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Dyer held a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University and served as an associate professor at St. John’s University in New York. From his early college teaching days, he wanted to make the principles of self-discovery and personal growth available to a global audience. His first book for general readers, Your Erroneous Zones, published in 1976, became an international bestseller and launched his career as an author and speaker.

Dr. Dyer eventually explored the spiritual aspects of human expe-rience. “My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity,” he said.

Dr. Dyer has inspired people to live simply and live their best life through his powerful messages.

Once he was preparing to speak at an I Can Do It conference. He took an orange on stage with him as a prop for his lecture. He then talked to a bright young fellow of about twelve who was sitting in the front row.

“If I were to squeeze this orange as hard as I could, what would come out?”, he asked the young boy.

The boy replied, “Orange juice, of course.”“Why? Why when you squeeze an orange does orange juice come

out?”The boy said, “Well, it’s an orange and that’s what’s inside.”Dr. Dyer explained “Let’s assume that this orange isn’t an orange,

but it’s you. And someone squeezes you, puts pressure on you, says something you don’t like, offends you. And out of you comes anger, hatred, bitterness, fear. Why? The answer, as our young friend has told us, is because that’s what’s inside. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you. It’s your choice.

When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.

This great lesson can be applied to any aspect of life and is a great eye-opener to leaders, specifically. A great and inspiring leader is self-inspired and will have all great qualities of exemplary leaders. Such leaders touch people at the soul level and make them more conscious. Dr. Dyer’s motivational and inspiring approach to life has changed and influenced many lives across the globe.

Though the soul of this great influencer has left our earth, he will continue to inspire and influence many hearts in generations to come. The greatness that was inside of him is his legacy to us. LE

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Dyerhttp://www.drwaynedyer.com/blog/

A Tribute To Dr. Wayne W. DyerThe self-help guru who helped transform lives

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When Dol lar General Corporation’s Sr. Director of Talent Development & Train-ing (ret.) Donna Turk was 17, she wanted to be a doctor. But when opportunities in the retail industry opened several doors, she trav-eled on a different pathway of professional growth. Her work set the standard for some of the top global retail corporations today. In this article, we talk

with Donna Turk to find out insights about her remarkable career. Q: You led a five- year training and development leadership role with Dollar General Corporation. Can you share a few highlights of your journey?

Donna: I had no intention of being in retail, but my retail career spanned over 43 years. I started as a Target cashier when I was 17. Originally, I wanted to be a doctor. However, I just got excited about retail after I experienced the positive impact that mentorship can have on younger professionals. This experience literally changed my career. My mentor saw something in me that I had no idea was there and had me start opening stores and training the new employees. They saw that I had talent and passion, and it all aligned. I then moved into managing Target’s college internship program and I was responsible for developing them to become store managers.

After a year, I moved into delivering training for running operations. I did it by myself. I relocated to Minneapolis to deliver training to the interns, and to this day, Target still uses the model to recruit top graduates on college campuses. My next evolution was working with the logistics department to develop a training program for six distribution centers. I was fortunate to be involved with many areas of the business. And after 29 years, I became the HR director for the logistics department. I’m most proud of our team’s development of the organization’s first in-house, e-learning program.

After Target, I went to the Schottenstein furniture division as their HR director of stores. I started a training program for the district managers and headquarters leadership. They didn’t have the needed leadership tools. I brought my Target background in leadership to that organization and then was swept away by Home Depot to manage the training for 22 states in the Midwest and Mexico, which was my first international experience.

At Home Depot, I was director of learning delivery, and we had a homemade learning management system, which helped

us to measure training effectiveness. Home Depot gave me the foundation that’s critical in measuring the organization’s train-ing investment and its value. Our training programs went on to earn the Association for Talent Development and Training Magazine’s Top 100 awards. Then, I initiated leadership training and helped get out ACE accreditation in partnership with local colleges. This helped open up the door for what we did later building our university alliances at Dollar General.

Lastly, I moved to Dollar General, but it was a period after they had dismantled their training department under a dif-ferent CEO. The new organization had the drive to grow 600+ stores a year. We had to implement everything from annual performance reviews to assessment centers to evaluate talent. With the support of leadership, the team put together a solid training and development platform that was ranked in Training Magazine’s Top 125 companies the last four years.

Q: What were some of the key contributions you made to help enhance operations, leadership development and learning?

Donna: I brought a depth of retail knowledge and the ability to lead teams. I was just fortunate to work with good leaders. This support system allowed me to put in place steps that helped organizations transform and grow. I always started by approaching the leaders we supported and I learned the value of partnering with other stakeholders during development and execution to accomplish goals.

I also learned the value of an assessment center that allowed for feedback to future leaders. At Target, their assessment center involved the leaders of the organization. We taught them how to assess talent and identify what was needed by leadership for the organization to be successful. The candidates went through the center to get direct feedback and create a common vision that defined what success looked like. The next step provided leaders with training to create a development plan and to give employees the right tools to grow. It’s important to remember that one size does not fit all. Everyone has different learning styles and leaders need to offer learning options. The best way to assess this is by benchmarking with other companies and industries. As a training leader, you have to be a lifetime learner.

A Road Less TravelledTransforming a small-box retailer into a top training organization

Michelle Maldonado interviews Donna C. Turk

“There are always those leaders that you’ll find are passionate about growing themselves. You need to tap into them. They’re going to help grab the attention of leadership. It’s about a combination of setting the expectation from your leaders and clearly communicating what you need from them”

8 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

Q: How did you encourage leaders to get involved in execu-tion of your talent development strategies?Donna: When I would pitch a proposal, I would identify the

resources that I needed and why I needed them. Lastly, I identi-fied what was in it for them. There are always those leaders that you’ll find are passionate about growing themselves. You need to tap into them. They’re going to help grab the attention of leadership. It’s about a combination of setting the expectation from your leaders and clearly communicating what you need from them. It’s also about picking resources around people and acknowledging their great contributions. Q: How do you see the training and development function create cultural leaders who are able to go beyond technical competencies?

Donna: We need to recognize that leaders have to learn their job. Those are the technical aspects. Then there’s developing the right type of leadership soft skills and having those conversations, so one is promotable for the next level. That’s when we get into identifying those soft competencies that will be needed. It’s very important to offer those tools within the organization. It starts with employee surveys to find out where your opportunities are and then coming up with training and development. At Dollar General, we started with a development session to focus on change management. We offered the program from an officer

level, all the way to our store manager level. It helped us develop a conversation as to why the organization needed to change and how that would impact each leader, first as an individual. Then we talked about how, they could help the others on the team. We also implemented a “Generations in the Workforce” workshop. It included a panel discussion with representatives from millennials to baby boomers. And we asked them—what does that look like to you? Just talking about the differences provided insights. We asked millennials to find a baby boomer mentor, and vice versa. These created a healthier culture. Q: What are some of the challenges you see attracting and retaining people for retail positions?

Donna: Because most of the workforce comes in to work part-time, the turnover is tremendous. This means that for an organization to provide 80 hours of training, the associated costs and resources are high. So the goal is to figure out how to provide just-in-time learning. How can I change my training so that there’s a balance between attracting quality employees and make it exciting that they’d want to stay? So it’s important to give your workforce the right tools and training to help them develop long term. LE

Donna C. TurkFeature Guest

Michelle Maldonado Series Creator

If you would like to read the complete article, please visit: www.GreatLead-ersInspire.com.

A Road Less Travelled

Michelle Maldonado is a former corporate attorney with more than 18 years of leadership experience in strategic planning, operations and partnership development across the Internet/technology, e-learning and online media industries. She currently serves as Associate Vice President of Corporate and Strategic Relationships for American Public University System (APUS) and is the creator and managing editor of The Inspire Leadership Series. Michelle is also Co-Founder and Chair of the Northern Virginia Conscious Business Alliance. As a business leader, Michelle utilizes an authentic and consultative approach to partner with industry organizations to form strategic alliances that support overall institutional growth strategies and leverage key academic resources for talent development and engagement. She also represents APUS in conference, print and online media venues on the topic of personal leader-ship development. Michelle can be reached at mmaldonado@apus.edu.

A 43-year retail veteran, Donna Turk served as Dollar General’s Director of Field Training, Director, Talent Development and Training, and Sr. Director, Talent Development and Training. Donna’s retail career began with Target Stores, Inc. where she held a succession of operations and HR roles includ-ing HR Director for the logistics and supply chain team. Donna joined Schottenstein, Value City Furniture Stores as their HR Director, and served as Home Depot’s Division Learning Director for the Central Division cover-ing 22 states and Mexico, in addition to other leadership positions. Donna holds a B.S. in Business Management and MBA from California Coast University. She retired in 2014 to care for her mother. She enjoys music, martial arts, consulting and mentoring various leaders, and spending time in the great outdoors riding her Harley.

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Servant leadership is something that people need, says Ken Blanchard, one of the most powerful leadership experts today. It is probably the only leadership approach that gives you great results and satisfaction. Ken feels that servant leadership builds self-esteem and encourages personal growth, while obtaining the organization’s objectives.

According to him, there are two parts of servant leadership - first is vision and direction. You got to make sure your people know what your vision and goals are. If they do, then they get a chance to get there. The second part is the servant part. You work for your people and your job is to help them live according to the vision and accom-plish the goals. So now, you have the leadership part and servant part of servant leadership

In brief, the concept of servant leadership is a great way of repre-senting what the leader of today and of the future is going to have to be successful.

Ken Blanchard was one of the distinguished speakers at the LEAD2015 event. Check out his informative speech that will give you a good understanding about the concept of servant leadership. If it looks like an event you want to be a part of, save the dates for LEAD2016; hosted at the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, Tennessee on February 3 & 4, 2016.  Click Here to stay up to date on the conference! LE

About Ken Blanchard

Becoming A Servant LeaderSatisfaction & great results come with servant leadership

By Ken Blanchard - LEAD2015 speaker

A prominent, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today. Ken is one of the most influential leadership experts in the world and is respected for his years of groundbreaking work in the fields of leadership and management.Visit http://www.kenblanchard.com/ Follow @kenblanchard

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COVER ARTICLE

Video

Interactive

10 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

I recently visited my Korn Ferry/PIVOT Leadership col-league, Matt Deakin, who, in addition to building custom training solutions for our C-Suite clients, was a member of the world-record setting U.S. Olympic rowing team—winning Gold in Athens in 2004.

We spoke of his personal journey and the process in making the Olympic team. Through our conversation, a significant principle emerged. I came away enlightened, and better, from our reflective time together.

Pushing 6’ 4” Matt was built to race. After years of dedicated training and experiencing the ups and downs that compel most athletes to hang it up, Matt pushed on until he was invited to train with the national team and subsequently be considered to represent the U.S. in Athens, Greece.

Within the top 30 rowers, it was anyone’s seat—but only 12 would be chosen. It was during these final stages of the selection process where Matt’s winning principle took shape.

Admittedly, Matt may not have been the clear favorite, but he had a good shot. He described the “pair matrix” vetting process where every rower was paired with every other rower to see which teams would clock the fastest times. It was here the secret principle was revealed.

Matt said that there are 3 mindsets a team can choose when rowing: Mindset 1: Row your best and hope your teammate does the same. Mindset 2: Seek to bring out the best in your teammate with your own performance taking a secondary focus. The hope is that your selfless efforts will buy the team a few seconds. And Mindset 3: Where both rowers focus on bringing out the best in each other to maximize the synergy of the pair.

Recognizing that Mindset 3 is pretty rare, especially when everything is on the line (think Prisoner’s Dilemma), Matt knew that if he could bring out the best in every member he rowed with, that this philosophy might make the difference—however small. But small is all you need when a hundredth of a second is the difference between winning a medal—and not.

While not the fastest or strongest, Matt made up for it with brains and thoughtful strategy. He knew the strengths and weak-nesses of everyone on the list and devised unique ways to tap into their deepest reservoirs of motivation and energy to bring out the best in each rowing partner. This philosophy landed Matt, and whoever he was rowing with, the best times in every heat.

With his name amidst every #1 pair, Matt made the Olympic team and the rest is history.

While his gold medal for winning the “Men’s 8” now resides in a box tucked away at his parents’ house, the principle lives on in Matt’s personal and professional life. He retains his winning philosophy, recognizing that achieving greatness does not come solely from physical and technical gifts and training, but through the “other focused” mindset that raises the bar, and performance, of every team he serves.

In a world where “selfie” is now a registered word (heaven help us), Matt’s secret principle puts much needed attention on the value of bringing out the best in others—giving us all something to think about as we seek to make, and be an indispensable member, of our own version of the gold medal team! LE

A Lesson From Olympic GoldThe secret to making the team

By Bruce H. Jackson & Matt Deakin

Bruce H. Jackson has dedicated his career to the development of individuals, teams, organizations, and communities that seek to maximize influence, leadership, and change. Bruce has worked with colleges/universities, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profit institutions. Bruce is the founder of The Institute of Applied Human Excellence—a training firm dedicated to helping individuals achieve peak performance. He is a Principal Consultant for Korn Ferry—the world’s oldest and largest executive search, leadership, and talent development organization. He is also the Executive Director of the C. Charles Jackson Foundation—advancing leadership centers, programs, and research throughout the United Email: bruce.jackson@kornferry.com Connect Bruce H. Jackson

As a consultant at Pivot, Matt Deakin works closely with clients to diagnose business and leadership challenges as well as design customized solutions. Matt brings his diverse background in government, program management, and consulting to his work with clients, which include Aetna and Microsoft. Prior to joining Pivot, Matt worked for the U.S. Department of State, where he was responsible for coordinating domestically with local, state, federal, and military assets to ensure the safety of visiting foreign dignitaries, and overseas with U.S. agencies, international partners, and foreign governments for the security of U.S. diplomatic missions. Matt brings this international experience and his focus on collaboration to his current client relationships and program design. Connect Matt Deakin

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Leadership is a long, challenging and unpredictable journey. Leaders on a daily basis face several situations that can put themselves on the dark side of leadership. A good understanding of the dark side of leadership will help leaders to shift themselves to the bright side of leadership.  This article outlines some of the themes that leaders should pay close attention to keep themselves away from the dark side of leadership. Solid awareness on the below themes will help you to transform from darker to brighter side of leadership.

1) Avoid Me, Me, Me attitude - Leadership is not about you, it is about the people around you. Lot of leaders have hard time giving up on the me, me, me attitude. If you consistently demonstrate me, me, me style, people are going to notice that and of course they are going to disconnect themselves from those me, me, me leaders.

2) Need not be Mr. Right all the time - Some leaders position themselves as Mr. Right. If you strongly believe that you are always right, you won’t be open to ideas and suggestions from your team or peers. If you are not letting the people around you to express their ideas, that often result in a low performing and low potential team. If you are comfortable and open to be Mr. Wrong on relevant situations that creates a transparent and open culture in your team.

3) No fluff please - Some leaders like owing the space they are in, whether it is a group discussion, official meeting or individual con-versation they love taking control of the context. This tendency can sometimes lead to fluffiness. Always remember that your audience and followers will be taking your words very seriously and even deriving action plans and decisions based on that. So it is extremely important to focus on real stuff and brand yourself as “No fluff” leader.

4) No False promises and hopes - As a leader, you are expected to deliver accurate messages in a transparent manner. Some of those messages could be uncomfortable for you to deliver and may be unexpected message for the receiving end. Some leaders will try to cover these situations with soft messages and false promises. Please be aware that your team will be taking your words like a bible and some of your false promises can cause much larger impact on them and their career. So next time before you say “you are on top of my list”, “we will take care of you”, “it just matter of time”, “be patient, I am on it”, please ask yourself “did I really mean it?” If you know, it is a false promise, it is better to give an accurate picture to the recipient than setting false expectations.

5) Avoid “Preaching without practice” - As a leader people expect you to practice what you preach. Many leaders preach a great vision but fail in demonstrating and practicing that vision. If you are not practicing what you preach, that can be interpreted as lack of commitment on your side or you don’t even believe in what you preach.

6) Avoid Know-it-all style- Leaders should be knowledgeable on their domain but they should stay away from know-it-all style. It is great to have excellent knowledge and exceptional confidence on your professional domain. However, if you start demonstrating know-it-all behavior, it will create distance between you and your team. Your team will be naturally constrained to bring their best ideas and perspectives to you as they almost can predict the outcome of that

conversation. The same theory holds true with your peers as well. In order to entertain transparent and open collaboration, you should stay away from know-it-all style.

7) Avoid acting too busy - No matter what your business domain, the most important asset you have is your people. As a leader, you should find enough time with your team to motivate, appreciate, coach and to give constructive feedback. If you are unable to balance your priorities and allocate time for your team that will translate into an ineffective team of demotivated and confused individuals. Some leaders always act busy which can lead to teams that lack directions and vision.

8) Lack of delegation and stretch - Leaders should focus on creating more leaders and better leaders. Delegation and stretch opportuni-ties are the best tools to identify and develop the next set of leaders that you can trust. Some leaders have problem in delegating and problem in trusting the delegates, which creates an overloaded and stressed out leader who struggles to find time for their team.

9) Don’t be a Micro leader - Some leaders love getting involved on every little detail of each and every projects and tasks. Of course this is not an effective use of leader’s time. This will also put addi-tional constraints on the team and can impact their creativity and productivity. Best leaders focus on setting expectations, providing directions and asking relevant questions to unleash creativity and critical thinking of your team.

10) Lack of maturity - Leaders who lack maturity will lose the trust and support from their team and peers. No one wants to be associated with immature and unstable leaders. Lack of maturity at the leadership level will results in an unstable and immature team.

11) Lack of emotional control - As humans, emotions are unavoid-able but many leaders has problem in controlling the emotions. Leaders who get upset and emotional frequently will increase the stress level of the team which results in decreased efficiency and productivity.

12) Lack of confidence - I have seen leaders with excellent leader-ship and decision making skills, but lacks confidence in expressing their decisions and vision on various delivery channels. A confident leader can create a super confident team. If the team cannot sense confidence in their leader, that will create a low potential and less confident team.

13) Ineffective communication - Some leaders who have mastery on their domain can still fail if they are not successful in commu-nicating their vision. Another challenge leaders can face is, main-taining consistency and effectiveness irrespective of the channels of communications. I have seen leaders who are exceptional in written communication fail miserably on a stage presentation or debate scenario or a mass communication channel. Great leaders focus on their story telling skills. They develop stories that are simple, easy to remember and easier to deliver.

14) Lack of trust - Leaders should know how to earn, balance and sustain trust at multiple levels. Trust is a two way bridge. You gain trust by giving trust. Some leaders have hard time in building trust with their team, peers or management. Some leaders are good in

The Bright Side Of Leadership20 tips to keep away from the dark side of leadership

By Bejoy Mathew

12 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

earning the initial trust but fail to sustain it. Some leaders struggle in balancing trust as over trust can backfire as well.

15) Inability to acknowledge and correct your mistake - As a leader you should be open on identifying, acknowledging and cor-recting your mistakes. If you are not demonstrating this quality you cannot ask and expect the same from your subordinates too. I have seen leaders who strongly believe that they are always right. This is a perfect recipe for failure. You should always be open to ideas and opinions of others. When you hear others validating and confirming your viewpoints you can confidently confirm that you are right.

16) Lack of motivational skills - Leaders get noticed when they create more leaders or when delivery high business value. High business value usually comes from high potential teams. In order to develop and sustain a high potential team, leaders should know the art of team and individual motivation. Lack of motivation usually leads to lack of productivity and lack of commitment from your team.

17) Lack of vision - Leaders should have a clear vision on their business, product and team. They should also focus on extending that vision to their team and stakeholders. Lack of vision will usually result in organizations with no/marginal growth. Leaders with great vision are able to inspire and motivate the team and there by not only drive better business results but also retain high potential talent.

18) Lack of consistency - Consistency is the basic expectation on a leader. Lack of consistency on leadership will result in conflicting directions and creates a confused team. Consistent communication is critical on transformational initiatives. Leaders who champion such initiatives have to repeat the change message in a consistent manner at different levels on a regular basis.

19) Inability to carry your team on your shoulder on failure scenarios - Leaders should be the protectors of their team especially when things go wrong. Leaders who protect and take the team on their shoulders on failure scenario will earn greater respect. This behavior also creates an added layer of safety, security and trust in the team.

20) Inability to showcase your team on success scenarios - Every leader should consider themselves as a great marketer. You have a greater responsibility to market, showcase and promote your team. During this process you should be less focused on featuring and promoting you. Leadership is all about the people around you and if you act as a catalyst or evangelist on showcasing their success that is when people really accept you as leader. LE

Does any of the above tips resonate with you more? If so I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and insights.Note: The views expressed here are my personal views and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts, opinions, intentions, plans or strategies of my current or former employer(s) or any other institutions, organizations that I am associated with.

The Bright Side Of Leadership

Bejoy Mathew is a senior director and visionary with more than 18 years of leadership experience in digital technology delivery, strategic planning, business transformation and innovation. He is the inventor of several patent pending solutions on digital space. He is highly passionate on people, leader-ship, innovation, entrepreneurship and transformation. Bejoy has a Masters in computer applications and also an MBA from Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.Connect Bejoy Mathew

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David was the managing director of finance in a global company. After completing an ownership structure analysis, David determined his parent company could take advantage of tax laws by fully acquiring one of its joint venture partnerships. When he proposed it to his supervisor, Janine, she immediately recognized the potential tax savings, but said it would probably require Finance to inform the CEO and then the board, to bring it to a vote.

Knowing much was at stake, Janice carefully guided David in his preparation of an elaborate, technical presentation that highlighted the details underlying the transaction. She recom-mended referencing case studies and detailing tax law, and advised him to prepare slides heavy on financial and tax data. Unbeknownst to Janice, David had been working in parallel with our coach to prepare a business case for the board. However, we were preparing David for a different scenario. What if he thought he had 30 minutes, and learned when he arrived that his time was down to three?

The approach we always take in guiding leaders like David is to prepare them for this likely situation. We know they need to be able to make the business case quickly, even capturing their plan in 25 words or fewer. After some preparation, David was able to boil it down – articulating the urgency of the problem, with a brief risk/benefit analysis, and three next step recommen-dations. David put this one page presentation in his back pocket and brought the full length PowerPoint presentation Janice had instructed him to prepare to the boardroom.

What happened next was no surprise to the coach. Within minutes of launching into his detailed presentation, David realized he was losing the board. Directors were whispering in side conversations, checking their mobile phones, and generally disengaging. About seven minutes in, the CEO asked David if he could skip straight to the summary. David pulled out the single sheet of paper he had prepared with the coach, and the board members sat up in their chairs.

When he concluded this summary, the board chair declared, “We just learned everything we needed to know in three minutes. This sounds like a terrific proposal. I move that we approve and ask the board for a vote.” The board unanimously agreed to pursue it. The estimated savings to the company over a three year period - $1 Billion!

What many leaders like David who are invited to speak to the board don’t always fully appreciate is that these presentations are like no other. The stakes are high - not only because boards are evaluating your proposals, but because they’re taking the measure of you as a leader. Boards have two primary responsibilities - fiduciary duty to guide strategic direction and decision-making, and evaluation of the the CEO’s leadership team capabilities and succession plan. Presentations like these are among the few opportunities they have to see you in action.

Too often, however, board presentations are huge missed op-

portunities that fail to put good leaders in the best light. This can have devastating consequences for a leader’s career. At this level, your business acumen and technical skill are assumed. What boards want to understand is how you think and communicate at the strategic level.

Though leaders like David get well-meaning advice from people like Janice, they often come unprepared for the realities of the board room. They may spend days preparing for a board presentation only to be shot down, interrupted or derailed with objections and questions that take the entire presentation off track. This blows their confidence and derails the objectives.

The result is they don’t look good, the CEO doesn’t look good, and the organization’s interests are not met. And don’t blame the board. They’re doing their job. The onus is on the leader to understand what the board wants and why.

The make-up of a board is very different from that of an execu-tive committee or senior leadership team. Boards are typically CEOs, CFOs and leaders from other companies and industries, with significant business acumen, experience and strategic capa-bilities, but little interest in the day-to-day operational issues. Their role is different from the executive team or executive committee. They must assume the analysis has been done by experts, and must press the presenter to make a business case while being ready to go deep when they see a need to explore a particular area of interest or concern.

Speaking To The Board Of DirectorsTips for handling Q&A sessions, interruptions, questions, and objections

By Craig Bentley and Suzanne Bates

15leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

16 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

Many years ago while coaching senior leaders to prepare for these situations, we developed a Template for Presenting to Deci-sion Makers that is designed to leap over these hurdles and help presenters make their case in a matter of minutes. The template gets to the core of what directors and decision makers care about. It starts with an out of the gate statement of the problem that needs to be solved and why.

Lacking this quick, compelling reason to listen, boards quickly lose interest, or interject with questions that often take the pre-sentation off course. If you’re presenting to the board and you’ve done your homework it should take no more than a minute or two to frame the problem with a few facts that rivet their at-tention and make it highly relevant.

David told the board, “We are missing out on an opportunity to take advantage of tax law with a relatively simple restructur-ing of our joint venture. Other firms that have already taken this step are not only saving in taxes, but also reducing their tax liabilities globally.” That got their attention! They sat back and listened. Their body language said, “Tell us more.”

David’s next task was to translate complex tax law into a memorable proposal. We have also developed a template for what we call the “Big Idea” that that enables you to do this in 25 words or fewer- the Big Idea has three elements - proposal, outcome and benefit. David and his coach worked for a few minutes and settled on this statement: “By restructuring the ownership of the joint venture, we can within three years save no less than $1 billion in federal taxes while streamlining tax reporting and reducing administrative costs.” Now he had them!

You may be wondering, “What is a big idea?” We define it in our model as “instantly recognized by the audience as something they want and need.” Audiences should be “inspired by the future state and believe the results are significant.” How do you know you have succeeded in landing your Big Idea with a board? You see it in their faces -all eyes are on you, they are nodding, and when they interrupt, the gist of the questions becomes, “How do we move this forward?” Of course it’s now important to be ready to crisply articulate the recommendations.

What about questions? Of course, there are always directors who want to take a deeper dive. If you’ve done your work well their questions will be right on point. To be sure you’re prepared we recommend you solicit help from those in your organization who work around and with the board, and are familiar with their backgrounds, interests and concerns.

A good exercise can be a “pepper session” where you ask these advisors to listen to your presentations, and ask questions they would anticipate you’d hear. It’s important to get up on your feet and deliver it as if it’s real, to make sure your presentation is logical, fluid, and conversational. This will also reduce your anxiety and increase your confidence the day of the presenta-tion. Ask your advisors for feedback on body language, voice and demeanor; remember that boards typically prefer a professional but informal style of communication.

It takes time to write and deliver a clear, compelling, concise presentation. As Mark Twain once said, “I would have written a shorter letter if I’d had more time.” And while you may feel strongly about your proposal, remember that boards want to know you as a person but they are not persuaded by emotion.

Logical analysis, practical wisdom and demonstrated judgment win the day.

We do recommend that you capture the essence of an idea with a word picture or analogy. One of our clients compared the opportunity he was presenting to the board as the chance to take a leadership position. “We can either be the engine, or the caboose, but either way,” he said, “this train is leaving the station.” When a board member later tried to interrupt with a challenging question, the board chairman cut him off. “Don’t you understand? This is about being the engine, not the caboose.” That’s when our client knew he had them.

Here are a few more tried and true tips for making a great presentation, handling questions and avoiding difficult inter-ruptions: • Flag your important points so people hear them – “The

most important benefit to us is…”• Bridge back from questions that take you off course –

“While that could be a risk, it can be easily mitigated by…”• Clarify the intent of the question – “If I hear you correctly,

what you’re asking is whether we have the resources to…”• Put detailed information in the back of your handouts so

as not to distract – “You’ll find a detailed explanation of that tax code in the back of your book”• Use three or fewer slides to keep the focus on you – and

consider using no slides and let people know – “I’ve prepared just three slides to be mindful of your time and get quickly to the main idea…”

What difference can one great board presentation make? David was invited to come back and present to the board in just a couple of months on a different but related topic. Clearly these directors saw he had what it takes to contribute to the company’s future success. Perhaps equally exciting, David knew how he would spend his time – investing in preparing for that all-important three minutes. LE

Speaking To The Board Of Directors

Suzanne Bates, CEO, founded Bates in 2000 with a mission to help leaders shape the world. The firm works with senior executives in the top companies in the world, as global expert in executive presence. Her team researched, piloted and launched the only research-based model of executive presence and the first assessment based in science, the Bates ExPI (Executive Presence Index). Suzanne is a sought after speaker and author of numerous best-selling business books including Speak Like a CEO, Secrets to Commanding Attention and Getting Results, and the upcoming All the Leader You Can Be, the Science of Achieving Extraordinary Executive Presence (McGraw Hill 2016). Visit www.bates-communications.comConnect Suzanne Bates

Craig Bentley, VP, Bates, is an executive coach and leadership strategist to Fortune 500 companies globally, helping them improve performance and drive business results through powerful communication. Craig’s experience as an executive leader and coach has enabled him to partner with hundreds of executive clients to develop a high level of influence, executive presence, stra-tegic thinking and communicative leadership skill. Prior to coaching, Craig worked in management consulting and was a senior officer and managing director in banking and financial services, playing an active role in strategic and financial planning. He worked globally and personally delivered numer-ous presentations to executive teams and boards of directors. Connect Craig Bentley

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17leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

As we enter organizations, we each face a simple choice: Do we primarily play politics, or do we try daily to perform at our best?

Why do we often choose to play politics? Because the politics of the organization often appear to dictate who is hired, promoted and rewarded, and so playing politics seems to be our best chance to control our plight, especially in a volatile business climate. How Change Changes Us

Business is not predictable; in fact, outside forces are always creating disruptions that require major shifts in how we work together. We join a company that is headed in one direction, and the next minute it’s turning 180 degrees in another direction.

We can’t control all the market shifts; as leaders, we can only proactively respond to them or try to influence them and ensure that everyone moves with agility in the right direction.

But the big question is this: How do you get everyone to successfully shift, learn new skills, and embrace change for the good of the company?

In the process of change we, as leaders, are bombarded with an incredible amount of detail. Do we have to educate and train employees on a new business direction? Do we leave it to the Human Resources department, or do we educate a few who teach the rest? Who announces the shift and how? What happens if people are afraid of change or don’t want to take on the new challenges, for fear that they won’t learn as fast as others or, worse still, that they may fail?

And, what if you are the one having difficulty? You want to stay with your organization but don’t like the direction it’s headed. What do you do? Do you try overtly to influence other executives to change their minds? Or do you play politics behind the scenes, trying to keep everyone from changing? Step out of Your Comfort Zone

Answer the following seven self-assessment questions and try to get a realistic picture of how you fare when faced with changes and pressures in the workplace.

1.  When challenged by others: Do you doubt your own abili-ties to lead and allow fear to drive you into defensive behaviors? Or Do you engage with others to build partnerships for success?

 2. When competition is fierce: Do you hold on to your old avoidance behaviors or rely on old strategies that have helped in the past? Or Do you focus on engaging with others to discover new strategies for success?

 3. When expectations for performance are high: Do you get upset with employees because they are not delivering results? Or Do you focus on having developmental coaching discussions to help them reconnect to their aspirations and skills for success?

4. When your bonus is on the line: Do you step in and get involved in your employees work for fear they may make mis-takes? Or Do you focus on engaging with others to discover new strategies for success?

 5. When you manage a team: Do you give people the freedom to make decisions and then take back their power when they do things differently than you would? Or Do you focus on Letting Go and allowing them to discover their own answers?

 6. When you are leading: Do you find employees retreating, avoiding confrontation, or losing faith in your management? Or Do you focus on encouraging employees to discover their leadership instincts?

 7. When employees’ performance is low: Do you confront these problems by deciding it is easier to fire them? Or Do you focus on having courageous conversations and help them grow?

What does this self-assessment show you about how you func-tion when faced with changes and pressures in the workplace?

I encourage you to engage with others to build partnerships for success—to co-create new strategies, to reconnect people to their professional aspirations, to enable people to discover their own answers and their leadership instincts by developing and using your conversational intelligence to have courageous conversations and help them grow. LE

Politics or Performance?Step out of your comfort zone and lead

By Judith E. Glaser

Judith E. Glaser is CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc., Chairman of The Creating WE Institute, an Organizational Anthropologist, consultant to Fortune 500 Companies, and author of four bestselling business books, including Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results (Bibliomotion). Visit www.conversationalintelligence.com; www.creatingwe.comEmail jeglaser@creatingwe.com

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19leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

By Deborah Dumaine

How to write to influence and drive action

What Do Leaders Need To Know

As a leader, every day you face the constant white water of change and growing complexity. You need a lifeline back to clarity and productivity for you, your team, and everyone you must influence to achieve your agenda. New insight on how leaders communicate every day

If you’re like most leaders, you’ve been investing your time and energy in developing your face-to-face leadership competencies. But did you know that your leadership is mostly demonstrated through writing? Here’s what I learned when interviewing our clients who are consultants and many other leaders from varied industries and backgrounds for my new book, Write Like a Leader.

Most leaders spend more time writing than they do speaking. That includes speaking on the phone and in virtual meetings! You have probably had plenty of training in leadership skills. But, how often has your learning focused on leading through the written word? Communicating clearly in writing is even more challenging when your audience is global.

If you received this e-mail, would you know what to do?From: John Q. DirectorTo: All Department HeadsSubject: Zap Energy System Disaster Recovery PolicyOne of our main priorities for the coming year is to have a

disaster recovery plan for all critical business functions. A critical business function is defined as a business function, the absence of which may greatly impair the operation of, or jeopardize the existence of, any Zap Energy System company. Disaster recovery plans should define procedures to enable the critical business functions to continue in the event of a disaster until normal business functions can be resumed.

In addition, ongoing testing, maintenance, and backup of the disaster recovery procedures will be necessary. Each department will need an employee awareness program.

Changes to existing critical business functions and the desig-nation of new critical business functions will require updating

Interactive

20 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

of all affected disaster recovery plans and procedures in a timely manner.

Plans for each area should be submitted by April 1.Thank you.

Have you ever written an e-mail like that? Ask yourself, from the reader’s point of view:

● What is the purpose of this e-mail? ● What does John Director want me to do?

Apparently, after two or more readings, the purpose of the e-mail is to inform all department heads that they must submit a disaster recovery plan by April 1. Another purpose may be to develop an employee awareness program—but it’s unclear whether each department develops its own or implements a company-wide program.

Now ask yourself: is there enough guidance for department heads to begin developing a disaster recovery plan? An employee awareness program? If you were the recipient of this e-mail, what other questions would you have for John?What’s wrong with this sample e-mail—mistakes leaders make in writing

● At the top of the list: John has obviously not considered all his readers and their varying needs.

If he had, he would have anticipated their expected questions about developing a disaster recovery plan; testing, maintain-ing, and backing it up; and instituting an employee awareness program. Even if he does not answer all these questions in this e-mail, he should provide guidance and explain how they will be answered.

● Another serious mistake: Action requests are both hidden and unclear.

The most vital information in his e-mail, to submit a disaster recovery plan by April 1, appears last instead of first, and is unclearly phrased at that. Since the action request is couched in the passive voice—“plans for each area should be submitted” instead of “submit your plan”—it’s unclear who is responsible for the requested action.

The result? Probable misunderstanding on the part of the department heads, followed by a time-consuming string of back-and-forth e-mails to clarify the goals for a disaster recovery plan, its purpose, and the actions John Director is requesting.

Do you have the competencies leaders need in daily writing? In our daily coaching with leaders, we see that many competencies go into leadership. The five in bold below are most frequently displayed in writing.

Competency 1: Influence and motivate for results from your team. Move others to act in a desired way to achieve the results you need from them. Remain open to other ideas and listen actively before giving directions, and be clear about the actions you want them to take.

Avoid being evasive—when you use vague or passive wording your reader is more likely to miss your message.

Competency 2: Have strategic orientation. A clearly laid out plan for how you communicate ensures that your message will drive action. Deciding what to include is an essential competency for you as a leader. How much should you include, and what is better left unsaid?

If you overload people with more than one topic per e-mail,

they will miss your most important message. Competency 3: Foster collaboration and teamwork by being

direct about linking long-range visions and concepts to daily tasks and creating action plans for your team.

Make sure action requests are not hidden or unclear. Action steps and important priorities should stand out and be directly stated. You readers will be less apt to miss an important step they must take if it is plainly laid out.

Competency 4: Strong analytical thinking will help you structure your communications to ensure your messages hit the mark. Readers will better follow what you are writing when there is a logical framework that allows your message to flow. Sequence your ideas, and include transitions to seamlessly move from one topic to another.

Jumping from one topic to another and back again without any clear and fluid logic makes documents seem disorganized and can leave readers frustrated.

Competency 5: Interpersonal understanding will help you decide how to relay the content of your message. Anticipate the reader’s receptiveness to the message and present information accordingly.

Different tones are required for different types of writing. In most professional settings, you will want a personable tone that is conversational. Personable tones find the balance between being too casual and being too formal. Your steps for success

When readers know that you understand and consider their needs, they are more likely to buy into your initiatives and do their utmost to carry out your action requests. By focusing on your audience, you’ll make persuasive decisions about your strategy and content. Through a targeted communication, you’ll gain faster responses, greater influence, and an increased respect for your clarity of thought. LE

What Do Leaders Need To Know About Writing?

Deborah Dumaine is a pioneer in improving business writing quality and productivity. She created a revolutionary process for Reader-Centered Writing. Since founding Better Communications in 1978, she has set the standard in writing development—specifically in response to the needs of corporate writers. She is the author of bestselling books Write to the Top®: Writing for Corporate Success (Random House) and theInstant-Answer Guide to Business WritingEmail ddumaine@bettercom.com

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Clear Writing for a Complex World

21leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

To many, “capitalist” has a negative connation: greedy, only thinking of their money and not people. Yet, I have found that bottom line capitalists are in fact often not only enlightened leaders, but extremely generous, to the point of being humanists.

When  I started in this field in 1993, I considered myself a humanist.  I was guided by the principle that if employees con-cerns are ignored, it will negatively impact the company. I still think this principle is the foundation of strong leadership, yet I am surprised by how often over the years I have heard myself asking clients, “Why don’t you just fire them?”

Don’t get me wrong—I am all for working towards a positive conclusion when there are performance problems. But sometimes quick dismissal is the best solution. In fact recent research by Leadership IQ shows that 27% of CEO’s get fired for exactly this reason: they are too tolerant of low performers.

I have watched executives go to great lengths to avoid firing people that are clearly either incompetent or just a bad fit for the job. The negative consequences of not firing the person are clear: reduced team results and negative motivational impacts on others.  Peers  see the incompetent person not being fired, and think “I am busting my hump to get results, and this bozo does nothing and gets the same bonus?”   Your team then doubts your leadership abilities and your overall stock in their mind is rapidly reduced.   

These are 3 excuses  leaders give for being ‘overly generous’ with employees - and none of them hold water. If you are using them, it is time to cut the cord,

1. “I want to just give them one more chance” This means you have waited too long.  How many last chances should one person get? We ask leaders in our workshops, “What should you do when someone is not performing up to standard?”  One person says send them to a class; another says mentor them; another says reassign them. And so on and so on.  “Fire them” is not mentioned for a long time. This is my experience with leaders in general. They will do everything to give the problem employee one last chance, and another, and another. If you’ve already told them the goals, coached them, removed barriers, discussed the performance problem, then guess what? You’ve already given them that last chance. Fire them already! 

2. “What will others think?”  This is the worst excuse. For example, I received a call seeking advice about how to handle an employee who earned about $100,000 / yr. and was discovered to have made several mistakes that cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. When I asked “why don’t you fire him?” management said they were concerned that people would think they rushed to judgment. Really?  They should know you will rush to judgment when incompetence is clear.  When I probed, they said they were moving the person to a less demanding job—a dead-end job with no career growth.  Letting that person stay shows that management doesn’t value money or the hard work of others, and frankly, is cruel and disrespectful to the offending employee. Man up and make the right decision even if it isn’t easy.

3. “It would be too disruptive” This is also ridiculous. A di-

vision leader once hired my business partner Antoine  to coach a manager two levels down. After initial interviews with the leader, Antoine said that hiring us wasn’t worth it - The manager wasn’t the right person for this job, they couldn’t do the job with all the coach-ing in the world.  And all the executive could say was, “It would be too disruptive to let them go.” So he hired us anyway. Three months and much coaching later, the manager quit.  They started to see for themselves that they weren›t a good fit.  The executive called Antoine with relief and happiness to tell him the manager quit. Yes he was happy, but were the financial and morale costs in the 6 months that this problem existed worth this non-decision? I say no.

The resulting rule is this: “If you are complaining about the same person more than three times to your spouse, you should fire them.” This final rule, simple and blunt, comes from a technology COO, with experience leading organizations both big and small. Sure, it is normal to have issues with people on and off. Performance and relationships ebb and flow. But if you repeatedly bring your work issues home and keep discussing the same problems with your spouse, this indicates, as he puts it, “there is a conflict between the values and behaviors that the firm finds acceptable, and the employee”.  The bottom line is that the employee is a problem and must go. 

I have come to see that capitalist and humanist are not opposites but synonyms.  Focusing on the bottom line makes you act quicker to fire people.  And after being fired, many people find new energy and focus in different industries and jobs.  The push out gets them to see their true gifts, which they can apply to the business world elsewhere.  The whole team’s pride and espirit de corps improves too: they can get back to doing the good job that they want to do without being distracted by the low performer.   And your reputation will increase in the eyes of the people around you-they will respect you for doing the right thing.

The bottom line is that if you want high performance, reward it.  Successful capitalists build their fortunes and organizations on this principle.   But they also know they can’t succeed by being an enabler of substandard results. When it is time to say goodbye, you need to say it.  It is the most profitable and most humane approach to take.

If you want to see if your leadership choices are that of an enlightened leader, answer these 8 questions at www.thepowerofswing.com. LE

Committed CapitalistIs he really an enlightened leader in disguise?

By Lawrence Polsky

Lawrence Polsky, co-founder of Teams of Distinction, works with corporate leaders to build and re-build teamwork across organizations. Through advanced team building and executive coaching programs, Teams of Distinc-tion has helped organizations such as Dell, Bayer and Walmart refocus and re-energize. Visit www.teamsofdistinction.com Email lpolsky@teamsofdistinction.com

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23leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

By Priscilla Archangel

Shaping your organization for success

What Does Your Culture Look Like?

We live on a corner and almost every summer day as part of my morning exercise, I walk down the side street of our home. The sun is still rising. The dew hasn’t yet vanished from the grass. Everything looks fresh and green. The bushes that we so carefully planted around the perimeter of our home several years ago have grown substantially since the lawn service gave them their spring trim. As each day goes by, I realize that some parts of the bushes are REALLY growing out, and maybe it’s time for a mid-summer trim earlier than we anticipated.

So one morning after my exercise I casually grabbed a big paper yard refuse bag from the garage, along with my favorite cutting tools, and meandered over to the two or three bushes that from a distance seemed to need special attention. Once I got close to them, I saw that in reality the problem wasn’t so much with the original bushes we planted, as it was with other wild bushes growing up in the middle of them. I began clipping away at the branches until I could finally see the base of these stalks, and move in with my more precise and sharp cutting tool to cut them off just above the ground. That’s as close as I could get given that the roots seem to be intertwined. Once I got all the wild, weed-like bushes removed, I realized that the original bush was only half as full. The weed took up so much space that it prevented the original bush from growing. As my one bag filled up quicker than anticipated, I began to recognize the enormity of the issue. There weren’t just two or three bushes that needed attention. There were about EIGHT!  

That’s when I alternated between wondering whether the lawn service just cut the bushes back versus cutting OUT the greenery that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. If I or my husband had paid more attention to the job that needed to be done, or how the bushes were developing, maybe we could have caught this earlier. Instead, now we needed to surgically remove the vegetation that didn’t belong there in order to nurture the greenery that was consistent with our original intent. This created more work for us, and loss for the plants themselves.  A Picture of Your Culture

Given my passion for leadership, I began to think about the lesson to be learned for organizations. Leaders who talk about the culture and behaviors that they want, but fail to follow through and ensure that everyone in their organizations know what to do and how to do it, are likely to get inconsistent results.  They may be too distant from the middle and lower layers of their team, and fail to describe and model the behaviors of success. They may never stop to verify results, talk with the team or gain feedback and input from others. This neglect leads to manifesta-tion of undesirable behaviors in their organizations.

A colleague recently told me about a manufacturing company with a relatively long product development cycle. The entry level engineers would recognize issues in the products they were asked to develop, but the culture didn’t encourage or reward open communication and identification of potential problems. So they simply kept quiet and passed them along until years later, they were much bigger issues that resulted in delays to product launch, and significant cost overruns that tarnished their brand image. Their “weeds” had a very costly consequence.

The same results occur in our professional and personal lives, where seemingly small and unchecked negative behaviors blossom until they derail careers or ruin relationships. The culture of a company or personality of an individual must be carefully cultivated based on desired outcomes that support the purpose of the organization.Culture Keys

Culture is observable in the beliefs, behaviors, knowledge, experiences and values of an organization and the individuals in it. So how can leaders redirect focus on building a culture that aligns with the desired results of the company?

Frame the desired environment. Do you want an organiza-tion that encourages associates to come up with creative ideas; promotes wellness; or values teaming with members of diverse functional groups? What behaviors contribute to the overall performance of the company? The leadership team should de-termine this with input from a cross-section of the organization.

Identify the behaviors and policies to be changed. What embedded processes, norms and actions hinder the desired state? Most importantly, what leaders (and their behaviors) impede the development? In discussing this, everything should be “put on the table” for review and consideration.

Determine the daily habits to get there. Once you identify what’s wrong, replace it with what’s right. None of us get rid of bad habits without first focusing on good replacement habits.

Reward and reinforce. Identify reward mechanisms in the process, along with a means to catch deviations early on. Un-wanted behaviors are generally deeply rooted, so it’s necessary to proactively dig in and stop them from spreading. You’ll need close and continual monitoring and pruning to develop your desired culture.

These high level steps obviously require a significant amount of engagement and time on the part of the leadership team, and frequently are best addressed by collaborating with culture change experts. However, the return on investment is multi-plied in providing exponentially superior business outcomes. Ultimately, the desire for change to a more beneficial culture must be greater than the discomfort of going through the change process, and weeding out the negative behaviors, beliefs, experi-ences and values.

So what does your culture look like? LE

Dr. Priscilla Archangel is a seasoned leadership consultant, executive coach, author, speaker, and teacher. Priscilla has held a variety of strategic global human resource leadership roles at a Fortune 10 company over the course of her 30 year career focusing on leadership development, talent management, talent acquisition, coaching, change management, culture change, compensa-tion planning, performance management, organization development and HR operations. She now consults with business leaders to develop and implement effective people strategies to support their business objectives. Her recent book, The Call to Faith Centered Leadership: Transformational Lessons for Leaders in Challenging Times is a compilation of 90 brief faith-based leader-ship development lessonsEmail Priscilla@PriscillaArchangel.com Visit www.PriscillaArchangel.com

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24 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

By Richard Secord

Understanding diversity in the workplace environment

Managing Cultural Diversity

Culture is defined as the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic or age group. How does this pertain to the workplace? How does a manager lead a diverse team with a variety of cultural differences? The millennials may have difficulty leading, training and mentoring a diversely cultural employee base due to lack of experience, limited travel to continents outside of their birthplace or for that matter outside of their respective community. This article will touch on this aspect as well as discuss creating a culture leading to excellence.

As leaders we are challenged with diversity in a broad spectrum based upon age, personality, race, previous career experience, rank/hierarchy, religion and cultural beliefs, to name a few. The accomplished leader will focus on the business projections and financial goals as well as team cohesiveness and development. He/she will utilize a balance of accountability that is displayed in identical fashion to each team member regardless of their respective cultural differences. If this is not practiced consistently an undercurrent of favoritism will evolve and the integrity of the management will suffer. This will lead to loss in productivity and potential friction in the workplace.

On several occasions along my career path I have observed favorit-ism and leniency by management and it often times is not addressed by directors or the human resources department. This infraction not only will set a bad example to the existing team but will also increase the chances future errors in judgment and this will continue to erode the work environment and impact productivity.

The manager may come from a country that has cultural beliefs that are gender based and he/she has not had the proper training to adjust to the equality of gender and race in the US . There are several opportunities for training in cultural diversity in the US, but this type of coaching may not be available in countries where the manager may have transferred from in the past several months. This diversity should be recognized and addressed from the onset to minimize the potential for judgmental errors in leadership. The human resources department will provide a variety of training some of which may be mandatory to all employees.

As profession leaders we are continually trained to understand diver-sity in the workplace and new techniques and strategies to cohesively address each situation. We also learn from our own observations of management styles and create our own methods to accomplish the desired goals. With increased access to international travel the mil-lennials and other generations are coming to several communities that until recently had not experienced this influx of cultures. As you may recall New York, Boston, Miami, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco were the primary hubs for established international community expansion in the past. Now 2nd and 3rd tier cities are drawing travelers from 3rd world countries that have recently experi-enced unrest in their respective communities abroad for example. It is for this reason I feel we as managers need to stay focused on cultural differences, work ethics and team stability if we are going to achieve our projected financial goals and minimize the attrition factor. As we

know, turnover is a major cost impacting the bottom line.Creating a culture of customer service is also critical to the success

of any operation. Whether the focus is on total team involvement without departmental walls or cross training to exceed customer ex-pectations the goal is the same. The first step is to have the managers lead by example and display the actions you want to reinforce. I have always utilized the format of leading by example to demonstrate the techniques, style and delivery of customer service expectations. Inter-departmental cross training is key to staffing and consistent delivery of customer service.

Challenge your managers to interact with a plethora of individuals with cultural backgrounds to gain insight into their beliefs, perspec-tives and how they have been managed in the past. You will discover more knowledge in a networking scenario such as a reception, an organizational meeting or a dinner party. Another venue is your employee break room. Many managers do not realize the potential to interact with line employees on a daily basis by sitting down with them periodically and discussing their goals and potential problems. The exchange of ideas could lead to a mentoring opportunity, as well. You may decide to set up a focus group that consists of employees from several different cultural backgrounds. From my own experience I have learned the basic cultural differences between the native born mid-westerner vs the Muslim or the Hispanic to name a few which has enabled me to make better judgments in leadership. Understand-ing the culture even from a brief interaction will be an advantage in managing a team.

In conclusion, stay focused on continual diversity training from several different resources. Interact as often as possible with managers and hourly employees to gain a deeper perspective of their cultural backgrounds. Be proactive in learning new methods to train and educate employees. Incorporate and reinforce the corporation’s values and standards to enable each team member to be educated with an increased in-depth understanding of the company’s views and projected goals. The upper management should embrace diversity and lead by example in recognizing cultural differences in the workplace. LE

Richard Secord has over 25 years of management experience with a primary focus in the hospitality industry. He is the former President of the Greater Charleston Hotel/Motel Assn. and a US Army War Veteran. Richard  is cur-rently a contract consultant and freelance writer. Email liveforsuccess@aol.comConnect Richard Secord 

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26 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

By Russ Elliot

Not just for big companies like Google

Great Company Cultures

Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at Google, recently wrote a book called Work Rules!. It is an insightful look into what Google has done to bring a culture of high freedom and creativity. A particular distinction he makes regards differences between treat-ing employees like machines verses owners. Machines do their jobs; owners do whatever is needed to make their companies and teams successful. For Google, it has worked quite well to create a culture of high freedom and creativity, treating employees like owners. Google’s culture is not the only large organization in the news. We have also seen a lot of press lately on the cultures of other large organizations like Zappos, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

The question then becomes whether small and medium sized busi-ness can create conscious cultures that effectively execute and provide a great place to work. The answer is absolutely yes. It becomes clear when reading Laszlo’s book and from my own experiences, the most impactful things we can do to move the culture needle forward does not cost much money at all. It is not about the free lunch, massages or dry cleaning, although those things do give employees a good feeling. It is about the values, leadership and supporting systems that allow an organization to be unique and powerful on its own.

Five years ago, I joined Bridge Bank as the Senior Vice President, Human Resources Director. During that time the staff grew 40% to 260 employees. I was hired in part because most of my thirty plus years in Human Resources were outside of financial services. I worked in industries such as auto manufacturing (NUMMI), high tech (Texas Instruments), action sports (O’Neill) as well as others. Bridge Bank leadership was interested in progressive ideas that banking had not thought about or seen.

Impacting and moving the “culture needle” forward was a prior-ity for me in my new role. The culture survey results in 2010 were 2.67 on a scale that went from -6.0 (low unsatisfied) to +6.0 (high satisfied). It was good and there was room to improve. Two years later, after implementing actions based on the 2010 results, the score went up slightly to 2.89. It was progress but not the progress I had hoped for. At least the needle was moving in the right direction. Many actions were put in place in 2012 and 2013 so that we could continue to make greater improvements in our culture. In 2014, the score went up significantly to 3.46. That felt good. In 2013 we were awarded the Top Place to Work For in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley) by placing 14th in the mid-sized companies. The recognition felt good particularly given the competitive arena of Silicon Valley. In 2014, Bridge Bank made the list of top 40 Best Banks to Work For in the United States. This was a great national honor since there are over 6,800 banks in the US. It is important to note that it does not need to take that long to create improvements on culture. It is a journey that gets better over time with conscious attention.

How can small or medium-sized organizations understand and improve their culture? What were those actions? Do they need free lunches and massages to make this kind of great progress? The free lunch is not the answer. Here are some key actions that any size of

organization can implement in order to make a difference and bring consciousness to their culture.

The place to start is with a benchmark. Objective measurements and assessments of the current state of culture are needed. Clear indica-tors of the strengths and weaknesses of the culture can be objectively defined in culture surveys. There are many surveys to choose from. Some are customized and others are part of a package. Questions can be rated and/or open ended. I recommend using culture surveys that have both rated and open-ended questions and that you customize the questions to meet the needs of your organization. Give great thought on what you want to measure because this same measure-ment needs to occur on a regular basis. If culture surveys are new to your organization, then conducting culture surveys twice a year makes the most sense.

Creating a culture group from different levels and locations that assess the results is the next step. This culture group not only examines the numbers and analytics of the results, but can also help fill in what is not clearly stated in the survey data. This “cooler talk” knowledge is priceless since this really gets at the important issues that need to be surfaced. It is the information hidden in the numbers.

It is important to spend time on determining the values of the or-ganization. At Bridge Bank, there were eight values in place from the early years of the company. The challenge we faced is that employees were not able to remember or relate to them. The values did not apply to everyday business. We took the time needed to gather input from different levels and, after much discussion and reflection, three values were chosen. We wanted each value expressed with no more than two words. The final three values were: Earn trust, Take ownership and Exceed expectations. The real test to their significance was the reaction from employees after the rollout. Often the comments were something like, “Yes that makes sense.” “It could not have been hard to come up with them.” Perfect. We succeeded in truly defining who we were and what the values of the organization were.

Another action we implemented to create a conscious culture was to implement leadership training at multiple levels. We offered a manager training track as part of Bridge Bank University (BBU). Often the weakest culture link occurs with first line managers. Too often managers are promoted from technical experts to managing others without assistance in effectively managing staff. It is presumed that because they were promoted they can effectively provide employees with feedback and motivation, understand how different generations prefer to be managed, know how to interview and hire employees along with other learned managerial skill sets. We identified the skill devel-opment needs in part from the culture survey and put those manager courses in place. This made significant differences in the competencies of managers and the job satisfaction of their direct reports.

We also added a Leadership Journey program focused on higher-level leaders. The year and a half program gave senior managers opportuni-ties to learn and grow together on leadership specified competencies. Toward the end of the journey, the participants divided into teams and

27leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

each worked on a project that was intended to impact the organiza-tion for many years. This is where the rubber met the road and the real learning occurred for these leaders. Significant game changing accomplishments came out of those projects.

An action that I think is important and often overlooked for its true significance in culture assessment is exit interviews. Too often they are conducted in a short period of time or by electronic survey and only get at the surface. Human Resources departments must ensure they create a safe space and build trust with employees so that employees know the intent of the exit conversations - making improvements to the culture. Effective exits can last 45 minutes and sometimes an hour. If employees believe the intent is sincere, they will tell the truth, both about what is working and what is not working. You know you have succeeded when the C level and managers want to learn from what employees have shared in the exit conversations. It is a critical way to check in on the culture and fine-tune both what is successful and also needs further attention.

All of the above strategies and actions speak to the culture assessments and actions within the organization. To speak to the outside world, Bridge Bank began building an employment brand for applicants. This included a video on our website that described our culture from the employee’s perspective. We posted job descriptions that were friendlier and spoke more to who we were rather than the details of the tasks that needed to be completed. The organization had the

goal of feeling more human and personal to applicants. An effective employment brand tells your story of what it is like to be an employee at your organization. It is often spoken from the employee’s perspec-tive using video and quotes to get at the essence of the organization. If done well, an effective employment brand attracts the right fit of applicants, reduces your time to hire and reduces turnover due to fit.

Can small and medium sized companies move the needle on culture? Absolutely. It takes intent and desire to listen to the voices of employees to create a conscious culture. What I have shared is a range of methods to create a more effective culture. Organizations do not need to implement all of these items. The place to start is the culture survey since this gives you the “truth” on what is going on. It is the role of Human Resources and organizational leaders to take the lead on building effective cultures, no matter the size of the organization. To quote James Haskett of the Harvard Business School, “A strong culture can help or hurt performance. Culture can account for up to half of the difference in operating profit between two organizations in the same business. Shaping a culture is one of the leader’s most important jobs; it can be ignored but only for so long and at one’s peril”*. LE

Note* James Haskett presentation at the 4th International Conference on Conscious Capitalism, Bentley University, Waltham Mass., May 22, 2012.

Great Company Cultures

For more than 30 years, Russ Elliot has developed strong expertise in human resources, organizational development and coaching having worked in orga-nizations including Toyota, NUMMI, Texas Instruments and Bridge Bank. From a place of deep commitment to creating conscious and sustainable organizational cultures, Russ believes that designing high-performing, engag-ing cultures is critical to organizational success.  Russ, SPHR, is currently the Senior Vice President, Human Resources Director at Bridge Bank.Email russelliot1@gmail.com Connect Russ Elliot

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“An action that I think is important and often over-looked for its true significance in culture assess-ment is exit interviews. Too often they are con-ducted in a short period of time or by electronic survey and only get at the surface. Human Re-sources departments must ensure they create a safe space and build trust with employees so that employees know the intent of the exit conversa-tions - making improvements to the culture. ”

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Introduction“ Research has found six distinct leadership styles, each spring-

ing from different components of emotional intelligence. The styles, taken individually, appear to have a direct and unique impact on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or

team, and in turn, on its financial performance.” - Daniel Goleman

(Leadership That Gets Results, Harvard Business Review, March 2000)

In essence, the heart of the leadership challenge that confronts today’s leaders is learning how to lead in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) business environment, allied with the needs to deal with scale and new organisational forms that often break with the traditional organisational models and structures within which many have learned their ‘leadership trade’. So the basic assumption that past experience is the key for future leadership success is more open to scrutiny than ever.

At Centre for Executive Education (CEE) we believe that leadership is all about the ability to have impact and influence on your followers using the right leadership styles so as to engage them towards achieving your organizational results through both Ontological Humility and Servant Leadership approaches blended with elements of social intelligence competencies and socialised power.Selecting the Right Leader for your Organization

Leaders come in a variety of colours, style and fashions. Picking the one you need when you need her is critical

You are the CEO of your organization and must select a new business leader. To succeed, all you have to do is figure out what makes a good leader, a debate that has been ongoing for centuries. You prefer not to wait centuries to make this deci-sion. You have six reasonable candidates, and your organization needs leadership now.

You learn that there is a new study (Goleman, 2000) that may help, in two ways. First, it shows how leadership affects profit-ability. The equation goes like this: leadership directly affects the organization’s climate. The quality of the climate accounts for about one third of profitability. Thus, the decision you make about the new leader has the potential to have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Climate is not an amorphous, feel-good word. It is used with precision as a comprehensive term to describe six important elements among workers:• How flexible employees are in solving problems;• The sense of responsibility employees feel to the organiza-

tion;• The kinds of standards employees have; • The effectiveness of rewards the organization uses;• The clarity workers have about the organization’s mission

and values;

• How committed employees feel to the common objectives.Second, the study accesses how each of six leadership styles

affects climate. As good luck sometimes has it, each of the leadership styles fits with one of your candidates.

The Coercive Leader: This person riles by fear. “My way or the highway.” The leader takes charge and invites no contrary opinions. This style has the most detrimental impact on climate in this study.

The correlation between coercive leadership and climate is minus, .26, i.e., as coercion increases, quality of climate declines. But don’t rule out your coercive candidate. This is the leadership style of choice when a company is in crisis. If your organiza-tion is in serious trouble, you may want to hire this person. Remember, though, that once the crisis resolves, coercive can create its own crisis unless your leader can shift to another style.

The Authoritative Leader: This leader has a powerful ability to articulate a mission and win people to it with enthusiasm. He makes a clear path for followers, cutting away confusion that exists in most organizations. Followers do not work at cross purposes because a commitment to a common vision is created. This leadership style has plus, .54 correlation with climate, the biggest correlation of any leadership style. As authoritative behaviours increase, so does the equality of the climate. This style will be particularly effective if your organization needs a new vision. Before making a final determination, however, look at the other styles, their impact, and when they work best.

The Affiliation Leader: This leader is a master at establishing positive relationships. Because the followers really like their leader, they are loyal, share information, and have high trust, all of which helps climate. The affiliative leader gives frequent positive feedback, helping to keep everyone on course. The cor-relation of this leadership style with climate is plus, .46. Consider your affiliative candidate if your organization primarily needs team harmony, improved morale, or if previous events created an atmosphere of mistrust. The downside of this style is that poor performance of followers is sometimes tolerated out of loyalty.

The Democratic Leader: This leader focuses on decision making by winning consensus. With consensus comes intense commitment to goals, strategies and tactics. Trust is a major feature of this leadership style as well. The correlation with climate is a healthy plus, .43. It works particularly well when the leader is genuinely not sure what to do and has talented employees who can and will make excellent input. In accessing your democratic candidate, consider the talent level of direct reports. If they have had time to grow into their jobs and work well as a team, the democratic candidate might be a good choice. Drawbacks of this style include that it works poorly during crisis that need rapid action.

The Pacesetter: This leader sets high performance standards for everyone, including himself. He walks the talk. This sounds

29leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

By Prof. Sattar Bawany

RBL framework to achieve organizational results

Importance Of Leaders With The Right Leadership Styles

30 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

admirable and has been widely believed to be effective. The data, however, indicate otherwise, with a minus, .25 correlation with climate. Why?

Pacesetters tend to have trouble trusting their followers. Their self-esteem rest on being smarter, faster and more thorough than everyone else. They unintentionally undermine the efforts and morale of those around them. Before dismissing your pacesetter candidate, however, look at the followers. If they are already highly motivated with strong technical skills, a pacesetter can be effective because their styles and competence already fit with the pacesetter’s expectations.

The Coach: This leader develops people. He is able to recog-nize talent and how best to develop it. He offers developmental plans, including challenging assignments that push people to cultivate new skills. The leader can see the future and bring out the best in followers. This style has a plus, .42 correlation with climate. It works best when followers are receptive to personal growth. If your organization is characterized by individuals who are waiting for retirement, don’t hire the coach candidate. If your employees are excited about learning, give the coach a good look. If you hire this candidate, recognize that coaching is time consuming, meaning that this leader will devote less time to other activities.Conclusion

In making your decision, consider the fit between leadership style and the characteristics of your organization. Even more

important, remember that things change. Take one more look at your six candidates. Look for flexibility. The very best leaders are those who have learned how to shift from one leadership style to another as circumstances demand. If one of your candidates shows evidence of being able to move smoothly among several of these six styles, that may tip the balance.

Since leaders lead people, the style with which you do it is important. It must truly represent you, fit with the situation, the results you wish to achieve and the people you hope will follow your lead. In truth, having a particular style is not as essential to being a leader as having a vision of what could exist, being committed to the vision, bringing great energy to realising that vision and having people to support you towards achieving the organizational results. LE

Importance Of Leaders With The Right Leadership Styles

Prof. Sattar Bawany is the CEO & C-Suite Master Executive Coach of Centre for Executive Education (CEE Global). CEE offers human capital management solutions for addressing challenges posed by a multigenerational workforce including talent management and executive development programs (executive coaching and leadership development) that help leaders develop the skills and knowledge to embrace change and catalyse success in today’s workplace. Email sattar.bawany@cee-global.com Visit www.cee-global.com

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32 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015Submit your Articles

By Tom DeCotiis

The path to authentic leadership begins with a choice - (Part One of Three)

Choosing Excellence: Being A Level Three Leader

There are three levels of leadership. When you’re hired or pro-moted into a leadership position, you are an appointed leader – a leader in name only. As you grow to the satisfaction of your followers, you become an accepted leader – a leader in practice. This is the level achieved by most leaders, and where most will remain throughout their careers unless they make the conscious choice to be better. When followers experience your personal excellence, commitment to their success, and honorable character in all circumstances, you become an authentic leader – a leader who earns the excellence of followers. Authentic leaders focus on results by moving followers forward through teamwork and insisting on personal excellence.

“Excellence is not something that you stumble into, but something that you build through good intentions, grit, and constant improvement.”

We Are Our HabitsYou are defined by your habits – you’re on time or you’re chroni-

cally late, respectful or predictably disrespectful, you laugh easily or you frown. What’s for sure is that you grow only when a bad habit is replaced by a good one. Excellence, then, is not something that you stumble into, but something that you build through good intentions, grit, and constant improvement. Choice, more than chance, determines your destiny. “Authentic” describes a leader who consciously works to raise the bar on his or her character, skills, and results.

A Leader Is . . .Ask a leader what a leader is and you typically hear that “a leader

is a role model” or “a leader inspires others.” True enough, and while you get what they mean, shorthand answers like these don’t tell you

much in the way of “how to” – and that makes them hard to teach. That’s why I prefer a more action-oriented definition:

A leader is someone who earns the active loyalty of followers and molds them into a high performance team that achieves results.

I know an effective leader because I can see his or her team’s perfor-mance and results. Becoming an authentic leader is the result of high personal standards. Just as there is a standard of knowledge required to be any other kind of professional such as a lawyer, plumber, physician, or teacher, there is a standard for the profession of leader. For want of a better term, I call this standard scholarship and believe that it starts with a clear and actionable definition of the leader you want to be.

“Being an authentic leader starts with your personal commitment to being an “A” student of leadership and a life-long student of your profession.”

Authentic leadership demands the same thing that any other form of excellence demands: good intentions, grit, and constant improvement. Intentions are things that can be clarified, grit is something that can be learned, and constant improvement is an unwillingness to rest on what is. They are qualities that can be learned through practice, the acceptance of honest feedback, and the determination to be better.Go With Excellence

You know excellence when you see it in the spirit of a team, its high mutual respect among team members, accountability, and consistently achieved results. Integrity, credibility, and balance are the hallmarks of an authentic leader.

As you read the definitions of the hallmarks, think about their implications for your leadership. Can any of them be just so-so? How do they build on one another? Can you think of situations where they were the difference between winning and losing? What is it like to work for someone who has solid integrity, credibility, and balance? The Hallmarks of an Authentic Leader

Integrity demands alignment of feelings, thoughts, and actions. It requires that the leader decide what is right and what is wrong, act on what he or she decides is right, and pay the price of his or her actions.

Credibility adds the power of performance and achievement to authenticity and signals the leader’s value to followers and to the enterprise.

Balance is the drive to deliver compelling value to all stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, investors and community) without sacri-ficing the interests of one to the interests of another. It is a long-term force within a team that occurs only at the insistence of its leader.

The definition of integrity puts muscle on the cliché “walk the talk” as it is clear that it may come at a price. However, it speaks only to the alignment among your values, words, and actions. That’s why credibility is the sister of integrity as it adds skill to the foundation of courage inherent in integrity. Balance rounds out the requirements of authenticity. Its absence is what you see when a team functions as a collection of stars or when its leader settles for a short-term fix at the expense of long-term strength. It’s not so much that the authentic leader

creates balance as she prevents imbalance by keeping the interests of all stakeholders front-of-mind. Put all three hallmarks together and you earn the priceless rewards of the authentic leader: being honored your character and achievement.

“A” Story About LeadershipA friend of mine taught anatomy to the first-year medical students at

the university where I did my graduate work. By any standard, he was a perfectionist, a master of the human body, and impatient with the “wannabe docs” he considered unprepared. One day I walked into his lab just as a small group of students incorrectly answered his question about the cadaver they were dissecting. He went ballistic, reaming the students in a very direct and public way. After he calmed a bit, I made the mistake of suggesting that he “lighten-up.” In hindsight, this was the wrong choice of words, as he looked right through me, and asked: “When you get really sick, which of these students who earn a “C” in anatomy do you want to take care of you?” Point made, and many years later, his lesson sticks with me: You don’t want “C” followers and, “A” followers don’t want a “C” leader.Make The Commitment

Being an authentic leader starts with your personal commitment to being an “A” student of leadership and a life-long student of your profession. The starting point is to craft your own definition of what it means to be a leader and commit to spending the remainder of your career to achieving it through the only two tools available to any leader: Words and actions.

It is in terms of these tools that expressions such as “walk the talk” and “be a role model” make sense and answer the most basic ques-tion of leadership: “Why should I follow you?” Poor answers to the question go a long way toward explaining employee turnover and mediocre results.

…In part two of this three-part article we’ll examine the path to au-

thentic leadership and the importance of personal growth. LE

Choosing Excellence: Being A Level Three Leader

Tom DeCotiis, PhD co-founded Corvirtus in 1985 to provide a range of innovative, science-based measurements and services that tie a company’s culture and core values to talent processes. Throughout his 40-year career, Tom has worked with organizations - from start-ups to Fortune 500s - to help them grow and succeed through a rigorous focus on company mission, values, business basics and stakeholder promises.Visit www.corvirtus.comConnect Tom DeCotiis

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33leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2015 Submit your Articles

“You are defined by your habits – you’re on time or you’re chronically late, respectful or predict-ably disrespectful, you laugh easily or you frown. What’s for sure is that you grow only when a bad habit is replaced by a good one. Excellence, then, is not something that you stumble into, but some-thing that you build through good intentions, grit, and constant improvement.”

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